Political pundits have already announced that this election is almost the last chance for Mayawati to keep her prime ministerial aspirations and the BSP alive in national politics. Due to her age and health, she will become politically inactive in the coming years
Lucknow: India’s retaliation after the Pulwama terrorist attack has changed the whole political discourse in the country. Keeping a tab on the latest political developments, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati is banking on her last resort of Brahmin-Dalit caste equation politics.
Despite the alliance with the Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh, she does not want to be complacent to keep her political identity intact as a national leader in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
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However, the conditions were quite favourable for the SP and BSP combine in Uttar Pradesh till January. According to political analysts, pendulum now seems to be shifting in favour of the BJP “after they announced 10% reservation quota for economically weaker upper caste (Savarn) and Indian Air Force's recent air strike across the border in response to Pulwama terror attack.”
Meanwhile, Priyanka Gandhi’s active participation in the state is likely to affect the SP-BSP combine's vote-bank. The people in Uttar Pradesh treat her like her grandmother and late former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
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If she managed to garner 2-3% vote share by her charisma and aura from backward caste youth and the Muslim voters, then this dent will hamper the final tally of the SP- BSP alliance. The BSP is all set to counter and offset the Congress and BJP’s poll strategy.
After the new political development in the country, the BSP general secretary and Mayawati confidant Satish Mishra, once again came to the rescue of the BSP. He has devised the BSP’s old success formula of social engineering with Brahmin-Dalit cast equation.
In 2007 UP Assembly elections, Mayawati came to power in UP with the help of social engineering getting 206 seats with 30% vote share.
Although, the Lok Sabha elections are a different ball game altogether. Also, Priyanka’s entry has given jitters to the alliance. Now, it’s not easy for Mayawati to garner anti-BJP Muslim votes.
According to political pundits, Muslims never remained the core voters of the BSP. They have often seemed to elect between the SP and BSP, although this time the former is BSP’s alliance partner. That’s why after taking stock of the current political situation in UP, the BSP chief has gone back to her tried and tested formula of Dalit-Brahmin equation of social engineering to consolidate her position along with their alliance partner trusted OBC votes in the state.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP got 42.3% votes in UP, while the SP-BSP combined got a total of 41.8% votes and the Congress got 7.5% votes.
According to sources, the BSP cadres have been asked to evaluate and assess seat-wise candidates based on this new formula and revert soon. According to sources, after this exercise, the party’s Lok Sabha candidates’ final list will be announced.
The final composition will look like in which Brahmin candidates possibly will get 9-10 seats and 10-11 seats will go into the Dalit community. At the same time, the Muslim candidates will get seven to eight seats, Rajput/Bhumihar can be given three to four tickets whereas OBC candidates will get between seven and eight seats.
Political pundits have already announced that this election is almost the last chance for Mayawati to keep her prime ministerial aspirations and the BSP alive in national politics. Due to her age and health, she will become politically inactive in the coming years. However, if the BJP comes back to power at the Centre, it would be very difficult for the opposition to get united.
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